Both times I stammered that yes, I did, but it was a bit neglected at the moment because, you know, life. I told the second person that I was mostly concentrating on writing my thesis at the moment, which isn't an untruth but it's also not the whole truth. Yes, I'm trying to hit that 40,000-word target by February but I have plenty of time to tap out posts like this one.
So why don't I?
***
People ask me what I want to do after I finish my studies and if they push past my vague first answer of 'something in the media industry' to ask what that 'something' is, I inevitably have to take a deep breath and tell them -- I want to be a writer.
But here's my sad, almost-inexplicable secret: currently, I am a writer who doesn't write.
Or rather, I only write when I have to. My supervisor gets a fortnightly excerpt of my latest thesis chapter. God sees all of my frantic, half-crazed journal entries. My friends get the occasional wittily-worded message about something I saw during the day.
But for all my (granted, reluctant) talk about becoming a feature writer or a magazine journalist, there's very little to attest to my ambition.
I'm not a fool. I know that it's almost impossible to get a job like the one I want. Especially here, especially now. I opened the July edition of British GQ in the supermarket the other day to find the editor pointing out that even big, established media organisations had recently made deep cuts to their staff. Hundreds of talented writers had been laid off because their employers couldn't sustain them in the changing media climate.
I know that the career I want isn't stable or economically practical or even that sensible at the moment. (Oddly enough, my parents are even more aware of this fact than I am.)
Despite the fact that I know this, I am not slaving away into the night, desperately trying to get my byline on the university magazine or in a local paper. Instead I spend my nights reading, or disappearing into an Internet black hole on Jane Fonda or watching season 4 of Parks and Rec for the hundredth time.
***
Why do I do this? Am I lazy? Do I really have no writing talent? Have I contracted some mysterious illness that causes my fingers to freeze when typing out anything non-uni-related?
I don't think it is any of these things. Rather, it's as unoriginal a reason as there ever has been: fear.
I am too scared to try. If I don't try, then I'll never have a chance to fail and I'll never have any reason to be disappointed in myself.
Even I, in my fear-addled state, can see the ocean-sized holes in this reasoning but it doesn't stop me from succumbing to its cruel, comforting logic.
Until recently. Recently, I have been faced with a restlessness that begs me to at least try and wriggle out of fear's vice-like grip on me. It's a restlessness that makes me look at the stack of books by my bed and say, I want to write one of those. I can write one of those.
Not today or tomorrow or even next year. But I can begin the long march towards that goal by typing blogger.com into my web browser, opening up a fresh post, and starting. I just need to start.
***
Here are the things I know: I am a good writer. I am not lazy. I have something to say.
This post is the result of a couple of nights spent sitting on the couch in my pyjamas, watching the cursor blink on my screen as I figure out what I want to say. It is not great literature, it will not appear in a Condé Nast publication, it is not going to be my ticket into a job next year.
These are just some words that have been rattling around in my brain and I needed to commit them to the page.
With that simple act, I think I've become a writer who writes.
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